Fractured
by Jellyhair
Summary: The rebellion are determined to find hope in a boy that's nearly broken beyond repair, whilst the Emperor is hunting him down to strike at his most vulnerable. There is a fight for all sides for the Chosen One and only Obi-Wan Kenobi stands in their way. But will he be enough to protect Anakin and even if he saves him, will there be anything left of Obi-Wan's friend to fix?


Hello! This is my first Star Wars story, so please try not to be too harsh, but constructive criticism is more than welcome and very much appreciated! It will contain a lot of Anakin!whump and angst and Obi-Wan!angst and** though it sounds like character death at the end of this chapter, there is no character death in this story**. Well, nobody that I really like anyway.

**Warning: This story will contain a lot of triggers as it will involve torture, genocide, drug abuse and some sexual abuse. If this is not your type of story, turn away now.**

Disclaimer: Well, obviously I'm George Lucas disguised as a young girl, whose only intention is to torture beloved characters. That is clearly what's happening here.

…

"This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper." T.S Elliot

If Anakin had learnt a valuable lesson from any of this, it was that time was a concept. There was no such thing as time. Of course there were clocks and days and years and seasons, but they were all man made. Just part of another world that Anakin hadn't been in for so very long. For him there was no time. There were no clocks, no days, no years, no seasons. There was nothing to be late for and nothing to wake up for. Time wasn't needed where he was. Everything just was. There was pain and times where they made the pain bearable. Anakin found himself craving the latter. His life had been so busy before, but now it was reduced to main activities: surviving the pain and surviving the trips.

He found himself wondering why he bothered to survive at all. Maybe he was living for the trips, those wonderful, awful, terrifying trips that made his brains leak out of his ears and his eyes explode out of their sockets, the trips that showed him the entire cosmos and infinite space all inside his head; the trips that showed him blood, so much blood, pouring out of his loved ones, oozing out along with their lives till he began to tear at his own wrists to join them in their dying. Sometimes the trips were euphoric; other times they were the purest definition of insanity Anakin had ever known. He must be living for the trips, because he wasn't living in hope. Hope had been obliterated. There was no hope for him. And there was no time. What would have been days blurred and melded together, they stretched on into years, centuries, aeons. The trips would last for entire lifetimes, going on and on forever. When he would come to, he would always be genuinely surprised to see how young he was. The trips made him feel ancient. He had seen so much and at times he would weep to know that none of it was real; other times he couldn't have been more grateful the horrors were all in his head.

He used to have a purpose. He remembered having a purpose. He didn't like to think about what it was though, because it made his chest hurt and his eyes water because whatever purpose he had once had, he didn't have any more. His mind had once been dedicated to that life, that old wonderful life of his, with friends and meaning and purpose. But after staying in that place for so long, he had to pick up all the pieces of his old life and hide them away, the memories that seemed more like stories now, so fragile and precious in his unstable mind. Anakin wrapped them up and kept them safe, hidden away deep down, where no one, not even _they_ could get at them. At times, when the loneliness made his chest ache so much and his eyes stream waterfalls, he'd get them out and look at them, those old memories. He'd hold them close and covet them like precious jewels. They were beautiful shards of glass. He'd hold onto them so tightly and the more he did, the more they'd cut and sting. He'd bleed over them awhile, admiring their beauty and wondering whether they were really his because the boy in them was somebody he barely recognised. He was so loved, that boy. There were few who loved him, but he treasured those who did. Their love was strong and so was his, even if some loves were hidden away or forbidden, he felt them and fed off them all the same. He used to live and breathe love. Now he had none, Anakin was failing. He was slowly, but surely, dying, wasting away in a hell made especially for him. Those memories would give him happiness for a time, but soon it would get dangerous and he would hide them away again, tuck them into the dark folds of his mind and guard them.

Then he would go back to surviving, the daily, monthly, yearly roller coaster of trips and pain and misery and ecstasy and madness, the haphazard routine of dreading and waiting and yearning and begging; once it had been for him, now it was all for the drugs. He tried not to think about his master if he could help it, never dared say his name aloud. His very title made him hurt more than anything else could. They used his name, to make him go mad, to poke and goad at his fragile sanity to see how far they could push until it shattered, to make him ache after a life he couldn't have, didn't have, not any more. They were just old stories. Now it was just him and the darkness and the pain. There was nothing else.

He didn't even have the Force. They were clever, in ways he hadn't known were possible. He remembered waking up to the darkness, oppressing his very being, remembered seeing the small scar on his left arm and looking up to see them standing over them, scalpels still fresh with his blood clutched in their gloved hands. A small device, they'd said. To stop access to the Force, they'd said. No help for you now, Jedi, they'd said.

When they cut off his access, they had cut off his hope. The Force was his source power; to deny him of that meant that there could be no hope for him, no possible chance of escape. Anakin had never imagined that something he had all of his life could be snatched away from him by one little device rolling around in his blood stream, but they had done it. Every time he tried to reach out to the Force, he found nothing there. Even if he couldn't escape, at least he wouldn't have felt so stranded and with his inability to sense his captor's arrival, they found it easy to arrange 'surprises' for him, finding it amusing to catch him off guard. It was a miracle he was still alive after all this time. He didn't know how long Jedi could survive without access to the Force, but it felt like he had been deprived of it for years. The knowledge that it was missing was always there, a huge, gaping wound in his consciousness, a bleeding hole that should have been filled with the humming of life now silent.

But even that wasn't the worst part of it. The worst part was that he couldn't access his and Obi-Wans' bond. When they had deprived him of the Force, they had deprived him of that too. He found himself trying still, trying to send emotions, thoughts, messages, anything across their now non-existent bond. He couldn't reach him. For the first time since he left his mother, Anakin felt truly alone. He would be presumed dead and what was the use of searching for a dead Jedi? And if they did ever find him, well, there wouldn't be a whole lot left to salvage. Soldiers died all the time in wars, but at least if he had died in battle, it could have at least turned up a body. But like this, dying in secret where no one would find him, gave no opportunity for closure. Seeing as he was technically dead, he hoped his master had been able to move on, even if there was no body to burn. Now Obi-Wan could have all the time in the world to himself without it being taken up by his troublesome padawan. He had space to breathe now.

Anakin had always known that originally he wasn't wanted. He didn't blame his master though because, well, really, there wasn't anybody to blame. Both of them had been lost and grieving, resenting the other for not being the person that they both really wanted. Their worlds had been destroyed and now all they were left with was somebody whom they hadn't wanted in the first place. He had been a burden from the very beginning. He should never have been Obi-Wan's apprentice in the first place. His master was too young and he himself too old. Anakin, in time, stopped resenting Obi-Wan. As time went by, he grew fonder and fonder of him until he suddenly realised that he loved him. Jedi weren't meant to love. He had been too frightened to tell him and now he'd never have the chance. He could have guessed what his masters' answer would have been, the standard Jedi lesson of no attachments, no emotions etcetera.

No matter how much Anakin loved Obi-Wan, he never knew how the man felt about him, not truly. There were times, he thought, he could have sworn that he knew... but it was so difficult to tell with his master. He was a true Jedi to the last, he was so guarded, always wearing a mask of calm and patience, so entirely different to Anakin, who wore his heart on his sleeve for all the world to see. His master was his father, his brother, his friend. But what in nine Corellian hells did Anakin mean to him? Did he mean anything to him? Or was he still the burden that Qui-Gon had left him, a promise to a dying friend and nothing more? The selfish part of him hoped and prayed that Obi-Wan loved him, loved him as much as he had ever done. It was selfish, to crave another's love to the point where it would hurt them. Because if Obi-Wan loved him, then losing him would be losing his world. Anakin knew that's how he would feel if he ever, Force forbid, lost his master.

It would be kinder on Obi-Wan if he didn't care, just not to Anakin. And the boy was selfish when it came to love, so very, very selfish. He craved it like a drowned man craved air. He wanted Obi-Wan to love him, even if it hurt him. If he was honest with himself, that was what it came down to. He didn't want to want it, he didn't want his master to experience any more loss than he already had done, but he couldn't stop himself. To love and not be loved in return was a new phenomenon to him. The only love he had ever experienced before his master was his mother's and that was an instinctive love, a powerful, natural love, given without thought and without question. It was the type of love Anakin had expected from Obi-Wan and it was a type of love his master couldn't give, even if he had wanted to.

Perhaps it would have been better had they asked him questions. Maybe it would have been easier, given him something to fight for or against. But there were never any questions. They never came. Anakin had expected them to come, waited for them, but they never asked him a single question. It would have made sense to ask him. They were in the middle of a war. He thought that they were Separatists and he was simply waiting for them to start the interrogation, to question him on secrets, plans, anything they wanted to squeeze out of him that was worth something. It took him some time to realise with a daunting horror that they weren't doing this for information. They were doing it for fun. They enjoyed it. They liked to watch the Jedi fall to pieces, enjoyed observing the cracks spire across him like fractured glass. They held his ruptured mind and squeezed it 'til it crumbled through their fingers like wet sand.

They used more than the drugs. Of course, they did. Drugs wouldn't have been enough to break him. They tortured him, with words and more mortal methods, tap tap tapping away at his strength whilst the drugs wormed their way downwards and ate away at the once strong foundations of his sanity. They liked to pull off his fingernails one by one and made him count when they ripped it away from his skin, crushing his durasteel hand and watching as sparks flew from the stub. Wolfish grins were on their faces every time they entered the room, feeding off his fear as he recoiled from them. They broke his bones and reset them, the feeling of splintered bone rubbing on bone making Anakin scream himself hoarse, they put out cigarettes on his arms, forcing him to watch them suck in long breaths and puff out lung-choking smoke, made him wait and watch, knowing that soon the butts would be burning his skin and the stench of melted flesh would be wafting into his nostrils again.

They chipped away at his constitution and slowly but surely, Anakin stopped pretending that he wasn't scared any more. He no longer put on a brave face every time they entered the room, he didn't hold back the screams until he simply couldn't take it any more. Somewhere along the line, Anakin stopped being brave. It seemed that there was no one left to be brave for. His master thought he was dead and he would never see Padmé again. What the use of lying to himself when he wasn't going to be saved, when he couldn't even save himself? They congratulated themselves frequently on how well they had done ripping him apart. Anakin couldn't deny that they had done a very good job of it.

So why did they stop now? Force only knows what Anakin would be should they have carried on. He might not have known who he was if they had kept it up. They might have been able to melt him, mould him into another shape should they have wanted to. But they didn't. One day, Anakin woke up to find himself alone. Of course, they weren't there every time he awoke, but he could tell this time was different. Perhaps, even without having the Force with him, he could still sense things that others couldn't. So, he waited. At first he thought they were playing the Game.

The Game was that they would wait to see how long Anakin would last without his daily/hourly fix. He used to last for an age, but not any more. It didn't take him long to get the boy desperate and if they managed to get him desperate enough, well... he hated himself for the depths he would sink to get the drugs. No Jedi would do the things he did. The Game filled him with disgust and horror at the lengths he would go for a trip. He didn't know he could ever sink so low for recreation. But the drug was in his veins; he couldn't get it out and Force, he needed it, craved it. It was all he lived for now and all he could do was pray that no one would ever find out the things he would do to have it running through his system. But as time stretched by, they didn't come. Which was odd, seeing as they loved to watch their marionette dance before their eyes. Only silence greeted Anakin's screams.

Time slowed down to a trickle; every second dragged on and on, every second that should have been spent in euphoria or terror was spent on waiting and he wasn't entirely sure which was worse. For the first time in a very long time, he witnessed a day in it's normal time span, watched the light fade and face until he realised that night was coming. His body clock had been unwound by the hectic trips which could go on for Force knew how long, so when he realised that he was witnessing the normal twenty-four hour cycle roll by, he felt rather bemused and slightly comforted by seeing such an old routine appear out of nowhere.

When he woke the next day from a restless sleep marred with nightmares, he was still alone. That was when the worry began, gnawing and nibbling away at his insides at first, before chewing away with gusto as the day wore on. Anakin realised with a thrill of horror that they had left him. A chilling, deep set in his core began to grow because, even with his captors gone, he doubted that he could escape. His body had wasted away throughout his stay; the more injuries he gained, the more weight he lost. Over the course of the day though, fear ebbed away to be replaced by... acceptance? No, he wasn't accepting this, he knew that he did not want to die. But it wasn't as if he had a whole lot left to live for. He hadn't had anything to live for for so long and now that death was approaching, he had to ask himself: if he didn't want to die, what did he want? He'd been here long enough to accept that no one was coming for him and if he did live, if his captors came back, he'd just be returning to a life of misery. Was that what he wanted? It seemed that neither option was particularly appealing, but at least in death, there wouldn't be pain any more. And that was most definitely something.

Anakin tugged at the chains around his wrists listlessly, his dreary eyes staring at the door. The cuffs had been chaffing away at his wrists for so long that they no longer drew blood, simply scratched against the hard, almost scaly skin. He knew it wasn't long until it started and now he was just waiting for it to hit. The drugs that had been clouding his mind for so long had now disappeared, possibly momentarily, lifting the fog and allowing him to think just a little bit clearer for the first time in months. If he could remember what having a breath of fresh air was like, then he supposed that getting back a little of his cognitive power would be something a little like that. He knew it wouldn't last long though. The clarity would only be momentary, the mere calm before the storm clouds came rolling in. Withdrawal. Force knows how long he had been on this drug and if they had really, truly abandoned him, then he wasn't going to last very long. He was just their toy, had been for far too long. They'd played with him too roughly and threw him away. What use did children have for broken playthings?

His body had become so used to the drug it was doubtful he would be able to survive for very long without it. He'd been to the lower levels of Coruscant (Coruscant? That name hadn't been in his mind for decades... if he tried hard enough, he would be able to picture it, but he doubted his already weak heart would be able to stand the sight of home) enough times and seen enough junkies starved of cash and Death sticks to know what withdrawal did to you. If you didn't get help quick, it killed what ever the drugs had left behind. But then again, he mused, there were far worse fates than going through withdrawal. He had suffered enough to know that. Born a slave, a brief period of happiness with his mother, then Padmé, then Obi-Wan (and oh god, it hurt, it hurt so much to think about them, he wanted them, he wanted them so badly, why couldn't he have them, why couldn't he have them) and then his life had taken another awful turn, first with his mother's death and then this. Perhaps he was just destined to never be happy. It would make sense for how his life had turned out so far. Even the happiness that they (can't say the names it hurts it hurts it hurts) brought him was tinged with the bitterness of forbidden sin. Jedi weren't supposed to love.

"But I'm not a Jedi!" he cried out, the words rasping against his throat, "I'm not a Jedi. I never was! I'm n-nothing, I failed! I'm not the Chosen One, so why can't I have them?" tears welled in his eyes and he found it easier to let them fall now that there was no one around to mock him. It felt good, to feel so raw without criticism, for his cries not to be met with scorn. The sobs came, bubbling in his chest then rising, rising out of his throat and bursting out in a wounded howl, more animal than human. The tears washed away the blood and dirt, wiped his cheeks clean, effective as a fussing mother's sleeve when her child had been playing in the dirt (dust, sand dust, dessert dust- Tattooine- his mother- she had loved him so much, he had been her son, her star, her child, her only, her all, her last words had been to him- it hurt it hurt it hurt). "Please let me have them," he choked, his bare back sliding down the wall, his tunic long since torn to pieces, "Please. I'm no Jedi. I failed them, I failed all of them," he buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking from the cries that racked them.

They had been wrong, they had all been so wrong. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, the Jedi council, everybody. There was no possible way that he was the Chosen One. The Chosen One was supposed to bring balance to the Force, he was supposed to be a powerful Jedi, a great master. Not... this. Not a lonely boy afraid of being alone and unloved, a boy who had been systematically broken down again and again until all that was left was his bleeding heart. Jedi didn't fear. And he was so very scared. Anakin didn't want to die, he wanted to see his family again. He couldn't see his mom, but he could still see Obi-Wan and his wife. His wife... He pulled his good hand away and looked at his ring finger. His ring should be there. A sign of his and Padmé's love and a sign of his failure. Jedi didn't marry either.

He could admit to being a soldier, but he could no longer call himself a Jedi and calling himself the Chosen One was simply insulting to the Jedi order. It was like some huge catastrophic mistake that no one had picked up on for the past eighteen years. Perhaps he had never been a Jedi, or maybe it had stopped on the day he knew that he loved Obi-Wan, or the day his mother died, or on the day he married Padme. Eventually his cries slowed and his breathing evened out once again, leaving him with a dull familiar ache behind his red rimmed eyes. Exhausted, he lay down on the ground, his arm pillowing his head. The only thing he could do now was try to sleep and hope that death would come to him then, not when he was wide awake. He didn't want to greet death face to face.

The day went by in stops and starts, Anakin half sleeping and dreaming, half awake and staring at the door. He woke up when the light was dying, his body covered in sweat and shivering with uncontrollable spasms. A deep set ache was in his bones, a pain that seemed to penetrate every layer of his being. Anakin had had many afflictions over his short span, but he had never gone through withdrawal. Unfortunately, it lived up to its reputation. With no Force to help him, nothing to alleviate his pain, it was one of the worst nights of Anakin had ever experienced. He lay curled up on the ground, heart pounding like it was trying to break free from his ribcage and he was sweating everywhere, it felt as though it was coming off him in streams, the remnants of his leggings damp and sticking to his skin.

It wasn't just the physical pain though, it was the fear. Anakin still had enough sense to recognise that he was unstable, his emotions unbridled and his sanity in tatters. The fear that came with the agony spurred it on, driving him into a panic. He was scared of a heart attack, scared of the pain, of death, the anxiety building and building and his heart racing and racing, both pain and terror feeding off one another and helping the other grow. There was no fresh rush of drugs in his system, but his mind provided him with hallucinations to compensate. He didn't sleep, not for a moment, but he found himself slipping constantly in and out of reality. Perhaps because the hallucinations were purely his own, it was a mix of memories and something slightly modified, as though his brain was making a bitter sweet attempt to help him with his loneliness.

_"Master?"_

_"Yes, padawan?"_

_Thick salty tears started to make their way down his flushed cheeks, only to be caught by a calloused thumb and swept away._

_"Y-you wouldn't let me die, would you?"_

_The soft smile was on his face, but Anakin couldn't return it. He was aching all over, his head pounding and he felt cold, the coldest he'd ever been on Coruscant, but he wasn't allowed any sheets. It was the fever and on Tatooine, when you got ill, when you got this bad (or as bad as Anakin thought he was) then there wasn't any hope for you._

_"Now, Anakin. What on earth would make you think that?"_

_"I-it hurts everywhere," he tried to hold back a sob, because Jedi didn't cry, Jedi were never scared, but he was. He didn't want to die._

_The smile remained on his lips, but it was lost in his eyes, the crystalline blue tinted with sadness. "I know it does, Anakin. I know," a cool hand brushed against the hot forehead and Anakin leaned into his touch, grateful for the comfort more than anything else, "but you will not die. I'll make sure of it. As long as I have the power to do so, I will always keep you safe," a fierce determination underlay his gentle words, the sadness in his eyes burnt away by something stronger._

_"Promise?"_

_The smile finally reached Obi-Wan's eyes and he nodded, a thumb gently rubbing circles into the boys' skin, "I promise."_

Maybe Obi-Wan hadn't thought that Anakin would remember that. When Anakin had become feverish, a fever that didn't break for three days, Obi-Wan never left his side. Whenever he woke up, his master was there, sometimes dozing off, but always holding his hand, a small shaking palm encompassed in a larger one. He didn't act as a Jedi master would. He didn't leave and let the healers get on with it, he didn't give calm, cool phrases about death and fear and how Jedi never fear and death was a natural part of life. He soothed away a child's fear, wiped away his tears and hushed his cries.

He acted like a parent.

If Anakin tried hard enough, if he peered through the muddled haze of old illness and far off memory, he could remember wandering into Obi-Wan's room at three in the morning, his whole body shaking to the core. It had been the first time Obi-Wan had had to deal with a sick padawan, one of the first trials that would test his mettle as a master. When a hand that dwarfed Anakin's forehead felt the heat that burned there, for the first time and possibly the last, a look of pure panic in lit up his master's eyes. Anakin couldn't remember him looking so openly scared. He did remember, though, how the man had picked him up in his arms, cradling him to his chest without thought. He remembered feeling Obi-Wan's heart hammer, remembered how he had started crying because if his master was afraid, his master who wasn't scared of anything, not even the spiders that sometimes found their way into his room, then something must be terribly wrong. The next part was a blur, but he could remember faint foot falls through the fog and an awful sense of fear that didn't belong to him. He had ran, his master had ran all the way to the healers with his padawan clutched in his arms. No, Jedi masters never did that. Jedi masters were always calm, in control. They didn't allow emotions to get in the way. Parents panicked, parents feared for their children. Parents would run like their children's life depended on it, even if they didn't, just to make them better.

The scene replayed in Anakin's mind over and over like a faulty holovid, his glassy unseeing eyes staring into the darkness. A hand on his forehead broke his concentration and he looked up and let out a cry of surprise.

"Shh, padawan. You were just having a nightmare," Obi-Wan smiled down at him, the same twinkle in his eye, kindness and care etched into his face.

"Obi-Wan..." Anakin started to cry. As soon as he saw his master he broke down, the sobs merging into one awful, guttural howl. He wasn't there. He wasn't there, he wasn't there, but Force, it was so good to see him. He wasn't there, but at the same time he was. He couldn't be, he was so much younger, the beard replaced by struggling stubble, the lines caused by age and war vanished. He was in the cell and he was in the hospital bed. He wondered whether Obi-Wan would be embarrassed at his padawan making such a scene in front of the healers.

"I'm sorry," he choked, grabbing Obi-Wan's robes and, Force, they felt so real, the rough material between his fingers exactly how he remembered and memories flooded into Anakin's mind; memories of Anakin wandering around in his masters robes with half of the garment trailing across the floor, how Obi-Wan had tried to chide him for it, but could barely contain the smile creeping across his face, how Anakin had insisted that it was because he was just cold when that was only part of it, when really his master's Force signature soothed away his homesickness when he was too scared to ask for comfort and how he used to pretend his master was there when he was away on missions. All of it just made him cry harder, because those memories were so happy, so precious, but that was all they could ever be now. He and his master could never make new memories. These remnants of his past life were all he had. Hallucinations built on the foundations of memory, it seemed, were far more realistic and ten times as painful, "I-I'm sorry, master. I failed you."

"Oh, Anakin. You're ill, that's all. You haven't failed me, Anakin," Obi-Wan murmured, his voice soothing. He ran a hand through the boy's hair, fingers getting lost in the filthy, overgrown locks.

"I have," he choked, staring up at him, "M-Master, you're not listen-"

"No, my very young padawan, you must listen to me," Obi-Wan said, managing to keep a perfect balance in his voice between gentleness and firmness. He pulled the sheets up around Anakin's shoulders and said, "Now, you are ill. You're feverish, your heart's racing, you're not thinking straight. You're only saying those things because of that. You're upset. I doubt that you could ever fail me."

Anakin shook his head, tears dripping off his chin, "No... Master, you don't understand..."

"Padawan, I understand perfectly," the smile was there again, the smile that was breaking Anakin's heart to pieces, "Go to sleep now. Everything will be fine," his voice started to fade, so did the sheets around him, the robes clenched in Anakin's fist losing their roughness.

"No, no, Obi-Wan, come back!"

"I'll always be here, Anakin," his master's voice had a dying echo to it, one that faded away along with the speaker.

"Master, please! Come back, I need you! Master!" he tried to grab him, tried to stop him from leaving, but his hand snatched thin air, "come back," he choked, falling forward onto his arms, his body shaking. Sweat and tears rolled down his neck, his eyes still wide and searching for his master, in the corners of the room, scanning over the shadows and yearning to see his master's among them. He was never there, he told himself, but it what did that matter? The only good company he ever had these days were his own imaginings or the creatures from the trips. Whether they were dying or accusing or caring, Anakin would always want to see his family. Even they could only be alive in his mind, it would probably be the closest he could ever get to them now.

For the first time, he found himself aching for a bed. His old life was luxurious to how he was living now. In that dingy one room cell luxuries were never as big an issue as the people he missed. But now his entire body was aching all over. He was sweating, which was worrying seeing as he hadn't drunk anything for a day and his muscles continually cramped and spasmed, pain flaring through his legs as though he had just had a rigorous sparring session without practising for a month. The sound of his wheezing, gasping breaths that filled the room scared him, like there was a wounded monster waiting in the dark, all the more angry for being injured and all the more ready to fight. And Force knows how many terrible creatures had visited Anakin in both his dreams and his trips. An entire Rancor had managed to fit in this room before, awful creatures, sometimes not even the sick, twisted games his mind liked to play where it involved his family. Sometimes it was an instinctive, base fear, which was just as bad, seeing as his body was screaming for him to get out and he couldn't. Just like now.

He didn't want to die this way, he didn't. He knew that death was coming, knew that it was inevitable, that he should just accept it and be glad he wasn't going to suffer any more. But even when there was no chance of survival, Anakin Skywalker was never known to give up a fight, though whether that was testament to his character or another of his innumerous flaws was debatable. It would be far easier on him to just give in, to enter the Force. He'd see his mum again and Qui-Gon. He could apologize to both of them, try to explain why he did what he did, try to get their forgiveness.

Whether they would give it to him or not was an entirely different matter, but it would be good to see them again. He hoped he wouldn't see his master there, or Padmé. Both of them deserved a good, long life. Anakin thought that it might just be okay dying just as long as they got to live. He knew that no father should outlive his child, nor should a wife be widowed with no husband to bury. Maybe it was his selfishness shining through again, but he didn't want them to die. If they loved him then it would break their hearts to lose him, but he'd rather their hearts be broken then have the only people he loved in this galaxy to die. If they lived long enough, maybe their hearts could be mended. No, when he entered the Force, he didn't want them to be there.

Anakin considered gnawing at his wrists, scratching away the hardened flesh to make death swift, but even now, when the end was inevitable, he still couldn't do it. The urge to survive. Pathetic when death was inevitable. He knew it would be better to make it quick than to just waste away, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Anakin wondered whether anybody would ever find him. He didn't even know what planet he was on, let alone whereabouts in the galaxy. It could be some unknown planet, a tiny speck far off in the Outer Rim, further from Coruscant than even Tattooine.

The thought of not being found, of wasting away in this one cell and never being found again, the image of his own corpse rotting away in his mind's eye gave his stomach the opportunity to empty what little contents it had. It was the pain more than anything else. His muscles felt as though they were on fire and he could barely go up on all fours without crying in pain and collapsing back onto the ground. When there was nothing to throw up, he spent what felt like hours curled up on his side, his body set alight with cramps whilst he continued to retch long after his stomach was empty. _'Maybe this is punishment for my crimes,'_ Anakin thought as he curled up tighter, squeezing his eyes shut. Genocide was a crime awful enough for the one who committed it to be punished indefinitely. Maybe that's why he had been here all this time._ 'I've been paying for my sins,'_ he thought dully, rolling onto his back and staring up into the darkness, _'I deserve this. I wonder whether I've paid all my debts yet.'_

Time soon slipped out of Anakin's grasp once again. He slept a lot and the times that he didn't sleep seemed endless. Pain had a way of dragging its heels into the ground whenever it did its work. Pain took its time. It was a meticulous beast and took pride in its work. Obi-Wan kept visiting, so did Padmé and his Mum. The memories that he had clung to and kept hidden had now ruptured free and were running rampant round his mind. He had no reason to hide them now, no need to keep them safe. Anakin had long since accepted that he had or was well on the way to losing his mind, but now that he was well on the way to losing his life as well, he didn't really see a lot of point in preserving what little sanity he had left.

He knew, in the back of his mind, way, way back in his mind, that none of it was real and the knowledge would always try to make it's appearance whenever they would fade or simply leave, it would poke and prod and scream for attention and at times, Anakin would listen. But those times would hurt, because if he listened then he was alone again. And that hurt more than withdrawal. That possibly hurt him more than anything they had thrown at him. And of course they would leave, they always did, but they always came back. It was simply so much easier to pretend they were real.

"Y'know, going crazy doesn't feel all that bad, once you get used to it," Anakin mumbled, his head lolling and turning to look up at Padmé, who was cradling his head in her lap, her soft hands running through his filthy hair. Another glitch in the system. The dirt didn't mar her, but then again, in Anakin's eyes, nothing ever did. He worshipped her, not to the point where he refused to see her faults, but to the point where it didn't matter that they were faults because they were part of her and there wasn't a part of her he didn't love. He had known it, from the day he saw her on Tattooine, years ago, whole lifetimes ago now.

"You're not going crazy," Padmé said, a gentle smile lighting her face.

"Angels don't fall for slaves," he murmured, just managed to lift his good hand and brush a finger across her cheek, "I must be going crazy."

"I'm not an angel," she said, her small, lilting laugh filling the room, "and you're not a slave, Anakin. You're a person, remember? You told me that the first day we met."

"You have a very good memory," he grinned lazily, hoping she couldn't smell how his breath reeked of vomit. Apparently she didn't because she placed a kiss on his chapped, bleeding lips and he couldn't help but marvel at how soft her own were. Force, he had missed this so much, how could she not be real, how could this not be real.

"How could you forgive me, Padmé?" he murmured, "after all I've done..."

A slight frown creases her brow, "Forgive you for what, Anakin?"

"Oh right," he mumbled. Bitterness, spurned from the undeniable truth that this wasn't real, stained his happiness, "it hasn't happened yet. We're just married... How could I not know..." he tried to smile, though he faltered. He was trying to put on a brave face, but the awful truth that he was putting on a brave face for a mere shadow, a ghost to keep him company, rendered him incapable of doing so. His head hit the concrete floor with a sickening crack. Grimacing, he curled up on his side, hands clutched on his scalp. Now that he had had such a forceful reminder of what was real and what wasn't, it would be harder to give into the fantasy. It was like waking up from a good dream and trying to reclaim its last vestiges before it slipped away entirely; but it was impossible to cling to waves that were already pulling away from the shore.

At first, dying was painful. It was an excruciating process and a very long one at that. The hallucinations made it easier, but only when they were there. Once they left, as they always did, the pain would increase tenfold, amplified by loneliness and anxiety. He didn't want to die alone. Dying scared him and he knew that it shouldn't, knew that this was probably going to be the best thing that had happened to him in a long time, but the reality of it, knowing that he was dying alone and forgotten by the outside world had a sharp and piercing sting. He could vaguely remember someone (most likely Obi-wan) telling him that pain was a made up thing. All of it was in your head, it was simply your brain informing you what was going on in the rest of your body. Information, that was all. How could anybody have such a removed view on pain? How could anybody dismiss this agony as simply the right parts of your mind witching on? it might have been easier to understand if he had the Force, because the Force always helped with pain and as a result, all Jedi's pain thresholds were far higher than most peoples.

Yet somehow, miraculously, his body managed to find a way around the pain, without the Force. As time slipped by, mostly without Anakin's noticing, the pain receded. It was still there, the only constant companion he had now, but it was as though it was retreating to the back of his mind, leaving behind in its wake a numbing, muddling haze. Maybe his brain was shutting down or perhaps his brain realised that it was pointless sending all of those signals to him seeing as nothing could be done about it. Whatever his state of being now was, it was certainly much better than being in such pain. It wasn't particularly enjoyable, but it didn't hurt. A comforting numbness spread across Anakin's body and he couldn't have been more grateful for it._ 'This must be my body shutting down,'_ he managed to get a coherent thought the haze. The fog dulled everything, pulling Anakin down into a calm, listless stupor, _'This must be the end. I don't even have any last words.'_

Anakin intermittently slipped in and out of consciousness, though either state of being was almost the same as the other. There were no dreams, no hallucinations, just the numbing fog that seemed to penetrate everything. It didn't matter that everything around him, including himself, felt like it was melting away into nothingness. It felt good. He was tired of reality. He couldn't handle what it had to throw at him any more and it was so very easy to give in. Everything just became one never ending blur and in the background lay the ever constant throb of pain. It was neither pleasant or unpleasant, simply a welcome change to the pain that had been so prominent before. For the first time, Anakin felt relief to know that this was it. He wasn't happy about dying, but he was happy the pain would be over.

Maybe becoming part of the Force would be like this. Numb for all eternity. For some, it would seem like hell. But they probably hadn't gone through what Anakin had. Not having to feel again would be a gift. Even if it meant cutting off the happiness; the pain seemed to overwhelm the happiness. Pain and sadness, in his experience, won out in the end, no matter how strong the happiness had been. Maybe it would be nice to finally get some peace.


End file.
